captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: the push for immigration reform in congress gained steam today, as lawmakers closed in on a compromise on border security. good evening, i'm jeffrey brown. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez on the "newshour" tonight. we hear from two senators behind the drive for a deal, north dakota republican john hoeven and new mexico democrat tom udall. >> brown: then, markets around the globe tumbled today. we examine how concerns with a credit crunch in china and uncertainty over the federal reserve have wall street

worried. >> suarez: the prevalence of the most common s.t.d. and principal cause of cervical cancer has been cut in half. margaret warner talks to a top c.d.c. official on the striking success of the h.p.v. vaccine among teen girls. >> brown: "money can't buy me love", the beatles sang. but paul solman asks, can it buy me happiness? >> the wealthier you are, the more money you spend on stuff that increases your sense of what you need in life, and that can be a little bit of an addictive cycle that does not bring you happiness. >> suarez: plus, two storied series; two championships on the line. we discuss the last second shots and overtime goals that have made this year's n.b.a. finals and stanley cup contest games to be watched and remembered. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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thank you. >> suarez: the prospects for passage of immigration reform, by a big margin, appeared to brighten considerably today. supporters talked hopefully that they'd met demands for greatly expanded policing of the border with mexico. >> madame speaker, i rise to speak. >> suarez: two republicans went to the senate floor this afternoon to announce a potentially critical compromise on a key sticking point for many in the g.o.p. >> americans want immigration reform, of that there is no doubt. they want us to get it right and that means first and foremost securing the border. >> some people have described this as a border surge, and the fact is that we are investing resources in securing our border that have never been invested before. >> suarez: senators john hoeven of north dakota and bob corker

of tennessee worked out the beefed-up security provisions. their language would nearly double the number of border patrol agents to 40,000 at a cost of $30 billion over ten years. it would also build 700 miles of additional border fencing and it would make use of surveillance drones to monitor illegal crossings. some 11 million people would be granted legal status for now. they'd have to wait for green cards, granting permanent residency status, until the border security steps are completed. hoeven and corker negotiated with new york senator charles schumer and other members of the bipartisan gang of eight, who wrote the original bill. >> speaking on behalf of the democratic members of my bipartisan group, let's say this: there is still some barring something unexpected we're extremely enthusiastic that a bipartisan agreement is at hand. we are on the verge of a huge breakthrough on border security. with this agreement we believe we have the makings of a strong,

bipartisan final vote in favor of this immigration reform bill. >> suarez: and there were some signs the compromise might win that support. illinois republican senator mark kirk, said in a statement: other republicans, including alabama's jeff sessions, were unmoved by the deal. >> there are a host of problems i think the legislation that we i think we can get something done but we're a long way from that today and i don't think this amendment is going to touch many of the objections i spoke about. >> suarez: if the bill ultimately scores a big enough win in the senate, it could put new pressure on house speaker john boehner to let the house vote on the same bill. still, today, he said, in effect, don't count on it. >> regardless of what the senate does, the house is going to work its will. our members, when we get back after july the 4th, republican

conference is going to have a special conference where there's going to be a broad discussion of this. and now that, hopefully, will determine, you know, what the way forward is. >> suarez: for now, at least, the house is moving toward a vote on a republican bill that deals with enforcement only. meanwhile, back on the senate floor, members continued to debate other amendments. the senate is hoping to complete its work on the bill by july fourth. and we continue our discussions with lawmakers shaping the legislation. i spoke with senator hoeven a short time ago. senator, welcome to the program. at this hour, are you feeling confident about all the pieces being in place for a deal that previously reluctant senators can sign on to? >> well, we put forward a piece of legislation that we're adding to the bill that greatly strengthens border security. i think it is going to really

help in terms of getting a bipartisan support for the immigration reform legislation. but, you know, we're kind of in the last minute of getting everything buttoned up, and there's just a lot going on. but i'm hopeful it will be very helpful to getting the kind of immigration reform the people of this country want. >> what are the most important new provisions? what has been added that helps bring on board some people who might not have been able to support the bill before? >> it really strengthens border security. we put a $3.2 billion high-tech strategic plan in place right in the legislation that must be accomplished on the southern border, everything from unmanned aircraft and helicopters and planes flying the drones, to sensors and infrared detectors and the new vadear radars, and all these high-tech equipment that can make a big difference, but in addition, a tremendous amount of manpower, 20,000

border patrol agents, 700 miles of fence. we implement an e-verify system to enforce employment law nationwide, electronic entry/exit systems at all of our international airports and seaports. this is about making sure we have a secure border so we don't find ourselves in the future in a situation where we is have a tremendous amount of illegal immigrants in the country once we address the reforms that are contained in this legislation displai at a time when much of the debate on both sides of the capitol hill complex is dominate bide arguments over money, this sounds pretty expensive. >> you know, it is, but it's fully paid for, fully paid for, and this legislation provide substantial deficit reduction as well. so this is about getting the job done with border security, about reforming our immigration system, about getting the workers we need. the h-1 b, the high-end stem

workers that type of thing to get our economy going, fully paid for and provides significant deficit reduction as well. >> suarez: are there members of your caucus who simply aren't going to vote for any plan brokered between the gang of eight and members like yourself, that even with these new provisions, they're simply not going to go with you? >> you know, there are some members that are not going to vote for it, but we're working to get a very substantial bipartisan majority, and i believe we can, and i think that's going to help in terms of actually getting the bill all the way through the house and into law. >> suarez: that was my next question. what about the house? how much of a vote do you need coming out of senate? does it build momentum coming out of the senate if you can get that number well above 60? >> absolutely. and i think we should-- you know, we should try to be at 70 or more, if possible. >> suarez: and you can do this before the 4th of july

recess, sir? >> yes, i believe we can. >> suarez: senator john hoeven thanks for joining us. thank you, good to be with you. now, we get an opinion from a senator representing a border state. tom udall is a democrat from new mexico. senator welcome. do these amendments from senators corker and hoeven get the senate where it needs to be? are the elements now in place fair vote next week. >> as you heard, one of the key parts is really border security. it's one of three, and this increases border security, invests more in it, in technology, and does everything you can to try and stop people from coming across. now, one of the other keys here, obviously, is many people don't cross through the border. they come in on a veez, and when it expires they stay. that's why the exit/entry system is important but the three

central things i think we've been focusing on are, number 1, border security; number 2, finding a pathway of earned citizenship for the 11 million people that are here; and the third is really dealing with employers, dealing with the situation where employers in the past have been hiring people they shouldn't be hiring. we're going to have a system in place that will check it out, and they will be able to call over internet and find out whether they can hire this individual. so all of this is very good for new mexico. we've seen a real investment in all these areas over the last six or seven years, dramatic drop in apprehensions. we've seen border security improve dispp so i'm going to look very closely at this amendment and see what it does to further improve this situation. >> suarez: well, is this going to be more than some democrats,

some members of your caucus can take? they were ready to go ahead with approval of this bill without these added measures, without the added cost, and without the two-step version, where first you do the border and then you do the legal residency. are you in a position where you may lose democratic votes while gaining republican ones? >> well, that's always a possibility, and because we don't know all the full details and exactly how it's going to function and see language, everybody has always said the devil is in the details on this bill. we know what we want in an overall way in terms of border security. we know that we want an earned path to citizenship, where you do those background checks at the front end so that the criminals have to go back to their respective countries. and then we also know we want to make sure we don't create the situation over again and have employers hiring people that they shouldn't be hiring.

and so those are the key components, and it's really-- the devil is in the details for many of us, i think, and we're going to be scrutinizing every amendment that comes up, or every substitute because we had a pretty good product coming out of the judiciary committee. it had 41 bipartisan amendments and it looked very good. >> suarez: do you worry about ending up what what for members of the democratic party might be the worst of both worlds, putting things into the bill to win over republican votes, and then not carrying the matter at the end of the day when it's all done? >> well, i think it's very important that we have, you know, the way the senate functions now is you can't get anything out without 60 votes. and so we have to have bipartisanship because right now, we only have 54 democrats in the senate, so we have to reach out and work with them and

that's what these eight senators who have been working on this for a long time did. they put a bill together. they got it through judiciary. it's on the floor, and we have to find ways to make sure that we're going to get a substantial margin. i don't know that it makes that much of a difference between 60 and 70. i think the important thing is that we've made a statement that is bipartisan, and then it's going to be the responsibility of the house to either take up our bill or do something themselveses and then get it into conference. and i think the president will play a key role in this in terms of what he's willing to sign and giving us the information we need to find out if this is a good piece of legislation. >> suarez: senator tom udall, thank you for joining us, senator. >> thank you, real pleasure. >> suarez: we have much more online. you can follow along with the debate, and view my discussion series examining the legislation, on our immigration page. >> brown: still to come on the

"newshour": the stock market takes a tumble; the sharp decline of h.p.v., thanks to a new vaccine; the connection between wealth and happiness and big drama in two championship series. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the sell-off that started on wall street yesterday turned into a rout today. it was fueled in part, again, by federal reserve chairman ben bernanke's comments that the fed might start paring back stimulus efforts. the dow jones industrial average plunged nearly 354 points to close at 14,758. it's down 560 points in two days. the nasdaq fell 78 points to close at 3,364. the u.s. house today rejected a five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill. the bill would have cut food stamps by $2 billion annually, but that was too much for many democrats and not enough for a number of republicans. democrats also objected to letting states set new work mandates for food stamp recipients. when it was over, leaders on both sides blamed the other.

turn it in to a partisan bill. that's what happened on this >> it really is a disappointing day. but we remain ready to work with the gentleman. i'm hopeful that tomorrow, perhaps next week, will be a better week. >> sreenivasan: we get more now, on just what happened to the farm bill, from todd zwillich, who covers congress for "the takeaway" from public radio international and w.n.y.c. todd, this was supposed to be bipartisan. there were supposed to be enough vote. what happened? >> well, this vote really imploded on the floor. what happened is republicans two needed 218 votes to pass this thing couldn't get it. they were relying on democrats for up to 40 votes. when the bill came to the floor they onto got 21 democratic vote, nowhere near what they

needed. democrats are really upset over cuts to food stamps, other nutritional programs. there had been a deal to supply 40 votes, that john boehner signed on for. the democrats said that republicans kept piling on other amendments that they didn't like, amendments that required more work requirements to get food stamps, in some cases drug testing to get food stamps. and in the end, too many democrats bolted. they wouldn't support it, and the bill imploded. >> soap what happens next? do we go back to rules from 1949 when the farm bill was permitted or is this going to come back up again in another week? >> probably not in another week. nobody really knows what's going to happen. the farm bill authorization lasts until september 30. the food stamp program lasts beyond that. it's on a different authorization. so luckily nobody who is on food stamps will get cut off on september 30 if they can't reach

a deal. they have to go back to the drawing board here. they could still have a conference even if the house doesn't pass a bill. they have done that before, like on the highway bill. the house never really got much passed but they managed to get a conference because they really wanted a deal. that could happen here, but the way forward is not clear right now. >> todd zwillich, thank you. in afghanistan today, president hamid karzai changed his mind again and said he is willing to join peace talks with the taliban after all. that's provided the taliban flag and nameplate are removed from the group's office in doha, qatar. meanwhile, the taliban offered to release u.s. army sergeant bowe bergdahl, who was captured four years ago. in exchange, the u.s. would have to free five senior taliban operatives, now held at guantanamo bay. the people of singapore struggled today to draw a clear breath, in the worst air pollution ever recorded there. a thick, smoky haze has drifted over from sumatra, in indonesia, where farmers illegally burn land to clear it for planting. in recent days, the smog enveloped singapore's skyline.

it's an annual problem, and the city-state's prime minister warned there's no way to tell how long it will last. >> we can't tell how this problem is going to develop because it depends on the burning. it depends on the weather. it depends on the wind. it can easily last for several weeks and quite possibly it could last longer until the dry season ends in sumatra which may be september or october. >> sreenivasan: the prime minister urged people stay indoors as much as possible. but indonesia criticized the public statements, saying they should have been conveyed through diplomatic channels. a cabinet minister said, "singapore should not act like children, making all that noise." those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: and we pick up on the markets fall today. for that we're joined by david wessel, economics editor of the "wall street journal." and james paulsen, chief investment strategist at wells capital management. david, let me start with you.

one of the big things at issue here, of course, is the fed. explain what investors are reacting to. >> well, yesterday afternoon, the federal reserve ended a meeting and they said they were a little more optimistic about the economic outlook and fed chairman ben bernanke said the fed would keep buying $85 billion a month in treasury bonds and mortgages, but that it planned, if the economy performs as he expects it to, to begin parring that back later this year and to stop this bond buying by the middle of next year. and he also said that short-term interest rates, the ones that we get on our bank deposits, the ones that banks pay each other overnight, will remain low for a long time. and he tried to say if the economy doesn't perform as we expect, we'll rethink our plan. well, basically, investors must have thought oh, my gosh. the day has come when the fed is going to start to make the u.s. economy and the world economy go

cold turkey on all this easy money, and they-- nobody wants to be the last guy out of the market. and so they reacted very-- very swiftly, more than than i suspect the fed anticipates. >> brown: james pawlzen, is it a surprise. everyone knew at some point the fed would do this. >> i don't think so. i think that part of the big response that david speaks to has to do with the fact we've come up so much i think in the last year. we had a really big run, 25%, 30% run. often in big bull markets you have very violent but short-term sort of pull-backs and i think this was a catalyst that allowed traders to sell, the excuse to sell. i do think that people calm down a little bit, we adjust to little higher bond yields we're seeing in the last few days as the fed stops buying many as many bonds. i think we'll calm down and realize that the fed's real message is that the economy to

them is looking a little better, and they think for the first time the economy is get along with a little less support from them all on its own as an equity investor that's probably a good thing. >> brown: david, that is the paradox here, isn't it? we get excited because the market drops so dramatically, but the fed is doing this in part because it thinks the economy is getting better. >> exactly. that is a paradox. so if jim is right and people begin after a couple days to realize, you know, this is really good news, we want to live in an economy where the fed doesn't have to be keeping interest rates near zero forever and where we bump along at such lousy groarkts then people could come to their sense. i think there are two possibilities for less-good outcomes. one is the markets overreact, and that hurts this very fragile recovery. look at housing. so mortgage rates are up quite a bit. they're at the heist level in 14 months. if mortgage rates keep going up,

will that hurting the housing market? and will that-- rain on the fed's forecast? the second thing is this doesn't happen in a vacuum. the rest of the world is always changing, and there were a couple of changes today. one is china seems to be having some problems. they're trying to step on the brakes, have lescredit available to their economy, but they have just even more trouble than the fed in figuring out exactly how to do that smoothly. we saw short-term interest rates rise abrupt abruptly in china at the same time there were reports that factory output is down. and every day there seems to be a head out of europe, sometimes good, sometimes bad. today was a little worrisome that maybe there is tension between greece and the internet monetary fund. this all comes at a time when the rest of the world is very unsettled. >> brown: jim paulsen, pick up on the china part of that in particular. how do you interpret what happened there and why it had such an impact on our market. >> personally, jeff, i think

china is the biggest risk, rather than the fed. i think the slow-down of the emerging world, led maybe by china is heavily influencing global export markets, particularly united states, and it's one of the reason reasons t manufacturing is the weakest part of our economy here, not our housing industry. i think the emerging world is holding back our production side. that's a bigger issue. personally, i think it's become more of a crisis pitch in china might be a good thing because it might, as david says, might get policy officials in that region to ease more in the face of that and maybe turn that situation around a little bit. if i could say one thing about interest rates here. >> brown: sure. >> i think the reason rates are going higher in this country because we're finally getting more confident about the future. you know, so which to me is better. is it better to have a 3% mortgage but most of us are squared armageddon is just around the corner? or is it better to have a 3.5%

mortgage with most of us starting to feel more comfortable about the future? i think higher rates with the more comfortable general populous about the economic future say much better situation than what we had even with lower rates earlier. >> brown: david, that all depends on where you're sitting, right? our viewers who are watching, it depend on their particular position, whether they're watching the market, whether they want to buy a house, et cetera. >> well, that's, of course, true. there's always winners and losers, and if you're putting money in the bank, and interest rates go up, you're happy, and if you're borrowing money and interest rate goes up, you're not happy. but i think jim makes a very good point. if this is a-- an abrupt and unsettling step towards a more normal economy where the fed doesn't have to freud so much credit where the private sector is able to grow a little better each month than it did the month before, that is the world we want to get to. everybody wants to be in a place where the u.s. economy is strong enough for interest rates to be more normal.

the question is are interest rates rising too fast, getting ahead of the fed and getting ahead of the economy? or is this a symptom of an improving economy? and i don't think we really know now. people have different views on that. we'll have to see what happens. >> brown: we will watch. david wessel and james paulsen, thanks so much. >> you're welcome. >> thank you. >> suarez: now, some striking results affirming a vaccine's effectiveness at reducing infections and a cancer risk. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: infection by a virus that causes cervical cancer has dropped more than 50 percent in teenage girls since a vaccine against the virus was introduced in 2006. that's the finding in a new study by the centers for disease control and prevention, testing the effectiveness of the new vaccine against human papillomavirus, or h.p.v. it found the infection rate in

girls between the ages of 14 and 19 dropped by 56%, even though only one-third of teenage girls in the u.s. have been vaccinated with the full three- dose course. h.p.v. is the most common sexually transmitted virus. an estimated 75% to 80% of men and women are infected during their lifetime, but most do not develop cancer. for more, we turn to dr. anne schuchat of the c.d.c. she's the director of its center for immunization and respiratory diseases. doctor, welcome. how significant is the study? >> this is really exciting news, margaret. we have a vaccine that can prevent cancer, and we already have great results of the impact it's having in teenaged girls so far. >> warner: and did you expect to see this significant a reduction in such a short period of time, especially when all teenaged girls in america are

not vaccinated? >> you know, i was surprised. we're vaccinating today in order to prevent cancers that will happen decades from now. we've also had very low uptake of the vaccine. so this was an early look at the infection rate in teens, as well as other age groups, and we were really excited to see that we're already seeing this impact. we think the impact is greater than we were expecting with the low coverage that we have, and that's really good news, because, unfortunately, we don't have good coverage. we haven't had good uptake of this vaccine so far. so from my perspective, this is a real wake-up that we need to do better and get this vaccine out to all the teens in the country. >> warner: so tell bus how many teenaged girls are getting this vaccination? when do you recommend they get it? when you say there hasn't been enough of an uptake, what do you mean? >> we recommend that teenaged girls and boys receive the

h.p.v. vaccine series starting at age 11 or 12. so far, only about half of the girls in the 13-17-year-old age group have received one dose of vaccine, and only about a third have received all three doses. our recommendation for boys is fairly new, so we haven't really begun getting good results on that yet. some people wonder whether we can do a good job at vaccinating teenagers. you know, we have really high vaccination rates for infants and toddlers in the u.s. but what we have seen is very good uptake of other teenaged vaccines. recently the vaccine against whooping cough, the vaccine against meningitis. those are both close to 80% upstake in the teenage years. but for h.p.v., we're really stuck at this one-third of girls with the full series, and only half with even one dose. we know we can do better, and we need to. >> warner: i want to get more into why, why the resistance.

but first of all, remind us of-- i reported in the introduction that 75% to 80% of americans get this h.p.v. at some point in their lives, but how many of those cases turn into cancer? >> right. we think that about 19,000 women gets an h.p.v.-related cancer every year. and about-- i'm sorry, about 8,000 men get an h.p.v.-related cancer each year. most of the it's most common type of h.p.v.-related cancer in women is cervical cancer. the most common type of h.p.v.-related cancer in men is throat cancer. so one thing that we like to say to put this in perspective is with the level of vaccination coverage we have right now, we are missing the chance to prevent a lot of cancers in girls. we know if we could raise our coverage from about 30% to the

80% figure that's our target, every year we could prevent 4,400 cervical cancers and 1,400 fatal cervical cancers in girls. so one of the things that keeps me up at night is how are we going to improve our program because every year our program stays at this low level, another 4,400 cervical cancers will happen. >> warner: what do you think explains the difficulty you've had in getting more american families to give it it this to their daughters? >> i think this is a complex issue. of course, there's been a lot of media attention to h.p.v. vaccine. but one of the things we're finding in our research is clinicians-- doctors and nurses -- are not giving strong recommendations. they're kind of sending mixed signals or mixed messages. i don't think the pediatricians in the country have really realized that they're the ones who can prevent cancers in this population. the cancers show up later in

life. the pediatricians don't treat the cancers, but it's that time period, the teenage years, where we really need to give the vaccine out. we give the vaccine out before infection to prevent the disease and the cancers that can occur. a lot of parents, and even some providers are wondering, can't we just wait until they're sexually active? why do we have to do this or talk about this now at this early age. but it's just critical to get the vaccine in before sexual activity begins. >> warner: when this vaccine was first introduced, there was some controversy, especially among more conservative-minded people that it would encourage early sexual activity or there might be health risks. how much of a factor do you think that kind of resistance is, and what do you say to parents who have those concerns? >> there's no evidence to suggest that vaccinating against h.p.v. will change sexual behavior patterns in the future. what i say to people is how can you not want to prevent cancer

in your daughter or son? as a clinician, as a parent, as a community member, how can we not want to use an anticancer vaccine. >> warner: all right, thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure, thank you, margaret. >> brown: now, does having more money make us happy? "newshour" economics correspondent paul solman traveled out west for answers not all of them intuitive. it's part of his on-going reporting "making sense of financial news." >> reporter: the university of california at berkeley, a key location for one of the hot new sub-fields in economics: happiness studies. but, despite living in the wealthiest economy in the history of the world, americans are a surprisingly unhappy lot. christine carter is a sociologist at berkeley's greater good science center.

>> usually what we see across countries is that as g.d.p. goes up happiness goes up or subjective well being tends to go up and the u.s. is kind of a notable case in the sense that in the last 35 years as g.d.p. has grown we actually haven't seen our average happiness level go up. >> reporter: we've been following this line of research for years, research that studies the psychological and physiological effects of growing economic inequality. as economist bob frank in his 1999 book, luxury fever, wrote: >> concern about position is a very deep-seated part of the human brain chemistry. >> reporter: so deep seated that stressing over it can be harmful to your health, as british epidemiologist michael marmot wrote in his 2004 book, "the status syndrome." >> what my research shows and

and by that, i mean, people second from the top have worse >> reporter: and according to another british epidemiologist, richard wilkinson, in his 2011 book the spirit level the greater the degree of economic inequality, the worse an entire nations welfare. >> societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor do worse on a whole range of measures. they have worse health. they have more violence. they have more drug problems. standards of child well-being are worse. >> reporter: but even if average happiness hasn't risen, those atop the economy should be content, since they've prospered as never before. turns out they're not happier either. so, how come? >> the first thing i'm going to do is put on a respiration belt for you. >> reporter: grad student jennifer stellar was about to measure the breathing of an upper-middle class guinea pig. >> and this is to measure skin conductance. >> reporter: my sweating. is this like the lie detector

test? >> it's very similar. >> reporter: my heart rate. and this is like an e.k.g. >> yes, this is measuring your heartbeat. >> reporter: to get baseline readings, stellar had me watch a mundane video about building a cement block wall. and then, she hit me with this. >> so you can start the video now. >> i'm 12 years old and i have neuroblastoma and i've been fighting it for seven years. it's really, really serious. it's a very rare cancer. >> reporter: stellar has run the experiment on hundreds of random people to test a hypothesis: that those of higher economic status feel less compassion than those lower down. and compassion turns out to be a key ingredient of welfare of happiness. stellar's mentor, berkeley psychology professor dacher keltner, says the lab postulated that kids of higher and lower economic status experience the

world in very different ways. >> when you grow up in lower class backgrounds and lower class circumstances, there's just more difficulty in your environment; there's more unpredictability; there's more risk; there are more threats and what we've learned from really interesting neuroscience is that humans, in the face of threat, connect to other people. and then complementarily, we thought: you know, if you grow up in a more privileged circumstance, you orient inwards to what's inside of you. and those are two fundamentally different ways of approaching the world. >> reporter: in his own early work, keltner found socio- economic differences in the ability to read facial expressions. >> here's anger. sadness. here's sympathy, or compassion... >> reporter: it turned out those lower down in the economy were better judges of emotional expressions-- expressions rather more subtle than these.

>> so given what we found early, we developed a hypothesis that lower class people should respond with more compassion when other people are suffering. they're just paying more careful attention. >> reporter: stellar's experiments were the first to test the theory. and indeed, lower income subjects not only reported more compassion, their vital signs indicated they really meant it, especially their slower heart rates. and that worried me. what if-- true to my own socioeconomic status and contrary to my self image-- my heart rate hadn't slowed? stellar tried to assuage me. >> it's not that upper class individuals see someone who's suffering and just-- they don't care, it's that they just maybe don't notice in their environment that there are people around in need, to the same extent as lower social class individuals. >> being lower in socioeconomic status is a two sided coin. you get the risk but you also get the protection.

>> reporter: rudy mendoza denton also teaches psychology at berkeley, studies the health effects of class differences. his lab looks for inflammation, linked to a host of diseases and yes, corroborating doctors marmot and wilkinson, it's finding plenty among those lower down the class ladder. >> you put a ladder on a piece of paper and you say, "okay, relative to other people in the united states, where would you place yourself along these ten rungs?" and that measure has strong predictive effects for health. >> reporter: the higher up you are... >> the higher up you are, the better you are. it matters not only whether you are objectively wealthy or higher in social class but how you feel relative to other people. >> reporter: so feeling low can mean greater stress, worse health, more unhappiness. but, says mendoza-denton, there's a protective strategy. >> being lower in social class almost by definition makes it so that you can't control your

outcomes. the way that people who are lower in social class cope with that is by relying on the things that they know they can expect to be there. and what do people know they can expect to be there? their friends, their family, their community. >> reporter: so if i were lower on the economic totem pole, i wouldn't be very happy, but supposedly i'd be more connected to others. and that got me to worrying. if test results showed me as uncompassionate, would that then brand me as a typical emotionally bankrupt prosperous american? >> regardless of the measure that you use to assess a particular state, or feeling, or attitude that you have, those attitudes can be changed. >> reporter: so even though subconsciously i may not be as compassionate a person as i think i am, i can become that person. >> there's a very simple word that we all use and are familiar with and it's called learning. >> for eons we've thought of happiness as a personality trait

and it's actually much more appropriate to think of it as a skill or a set of skills that we can teach ourselves and teach our children, that we can practice with them. >> reporter: more and more research confirms what they're finding here at berkeley, says christine carter: not that those who have less are happier, but that those who have and spend more are often just speeding up the happiness treadmill. >> the wealthier you are the more money you spend on stuff that increases your sense of what you need in life and that can be a little bit of an addictive cycle that does not bring happiness. likability and kindness, and empathy, these are things that make you happy. they connect you to other people and that's the most important thing. >> reporter: okay, enough theory. let's talk about me. i try to be likable, kind: had the video provoked involuntary compassion or hadn't it? not initially, said jennifer stellar. >> what we noticed was the first

time you watched it you didn't have a very strong physiological response. >> reporter: but in order to shoot this scene from more than one angle, i actually had to watch the video several times. >> so i looked at the second time you watched the video and we found when we watched it that time that we saw a decrease in heart rate which is what we tend to find when somebody is experiencing compassion. >> reporter: and the third time... so maybe the more fortunate aren't really less compassionate deep down. or maybe you shouldn't read much into one person's first reaction. or, i can think of one other possibility: if you're really too compassionate, you'll never rise into the upper class. >> and, that's one of the things we'll be able to test with our work. if you're too compassionate, you won't be able to be cutthroat enough make it to the top. >> reporter: for the sake of the american economy, let's hope that isn't the finding of further research here at the greater good science center. >> suarez: you can see more of paul's conversation with christine carter on our making

sense page. in his next story, paul examines more about the psychology of wealth. >> brown: next, sometimes sports reaches beyond its regular base of fans. this has been one of those weeks filled with drama. >> they are the best two words in team sports, game seven. >> brown: miami heat head coach eric spoelstra set the stage, after his team rallied to beat the san antonio spurs in overtime, tuesday night. game six became an instant classic, in a title series that features a raft of future hall- of-famers, including miami star lebron james. >> it's by far the best game i have ever been a part of. to be a part of something like this is something you will never be able to recreate once you're done playing the game and i'm blessed to be a part of something like this. >> brown: james, dwayne wade and chris bosh make up miami's "big three".

a victory tonight would mean back-to-back titles for their franchise. for san antonio, veteran tim duncan leads a spurs team that has never lost in the finals. a win thursday would garner him a fifth title. duncan said yesterday his team we know what's at stake. we know what we have to do. it's all about just winning the title. it's not about situations or what's led up to it. >> brown: another epic playoff battle is being waged on the ice, between two of the national hockey league's "original six" teams. the chicago blackhawks and boston bruins are deadlocked at two games apiece in the stanley cup final. three of the four games have gone to overtime, including last night's thriller, a 6-to-5 win for chicago. game five is saturday night in chicago. mike pesca of npr has been trying to keep up with all this.

tonight he joins us from, where else? miami, for game seven of the n.b.a. finals. and, mike, start right there. you are, of course, by definition, excited at this time of year, but what makes this one stand out for the rest of us? >> no, no, no. excited, i just keep my professional distance and no the winners and losers. are you kidding? i'm extremely excited. when the heat were trailing by 10 entering the fourth quarter and the mood was gloomy, i think i and everyone else in the arena was saying well, let's just put a fifth ring on tim duncan's finger. lebron came back, spurred the team on without a headband, three-point shots by ray allen. it was an amazing, amazing game. i think this game seven, like all game sevens by definition is very important, you heard the coach says it's the greatest name in sport. it really is the most anticipated game i think since 1984 in one of those celtics

versus lakers series. and this just cooperate be bigger. the tv ratings are big. and everyone is fascinated and captivated by lebron james. everyone has an opinion on that guy. >> brown: there's lebron james and then there's this other team, the spurs with their own very veteran team that as you just described let things fall away at the end. now, one question is, how do they come back after something like that? >> both teams are physically drained, equally physically drained and after his press conference tuesday lebron james had a lot of trouble even getting up out of his seat. he did take time to note after his press conference yesterday he got up pretty spryly and said, see how easy that was." it's the emotional impact a lot of people are focusing on. i think there is no team better suited to deal with weathering that storm than the san antonio storms from their best player tim duncan, who is ever stoic but doesn't seem to let emotions affect him or take him out of the game, to his coach, probably

the greatest tactician in the n.b.a., probably the greatest motivator in the n.b.a. even though fans are perhaps foisting their own emotion on the team, fans who are def straight saying how are the spurs going to get back there from an emotional level? i think the spurs are professionals and the emotions i don't think are going to be the thing that makes the game turn one way or the other. >> brown: we talked about this last game where it went into overtime it was so close. before that, they took turns sort of killing each other, and it was interesting to watch the team rebound. these are not only great teams. they're smart teams. they learn how to adjust. >> yeah, exactly. it's part of the game. i think for the heat it's been too much a part of their game rebounding or zigzagging. they've alternated between wins and losses, 13 games in a row. if they were to win tonight that would be their first two games in a row having won since the indiana series. the last time they won two gays in a row was may 20. but no one is saying oh, it will

be hard for the heat to concentrate or win two in a row because they have game seven on their home court and the last five game sevens the home team has won in the finals. >> brown: you mentioned lebron james, of course, as the focus of-- always the focus, really, whether loved or hated, villain or hero, again tonight, right? >> yeah. and i notice that no one said, "hey, tim duncan only had five points in the second half and zero points in overtime." no one said, "what will this do to tim duncan's legacy." i think that is fair. tim duncan's legacy it is in place. maybe lebron james' is, too. we like to keep all amount of scoring on lebron james. he's the focal point of his team. as he goes, the tape goes. the thing is he usually goes exceptionally well and by the end of the game, he puts up triple doubles and statistics and fantastic plays that has everyone forget ago maybe everyone forgetting that day when he said i'm taking my talents to south beach pain win

today will mean three trippedz to the finals since he's been a member of the heat, two championships. who could say anything about that? well, the answer is everyone who has a sports column. next year, the moment lebron james goes down in a series. but, still, he's played really well. though you have to say if the heat are to win tonight, he'll have to play well again. >> brown: just in our last minute, i know this will be hard but if i can take your mind off basketball and to the ice because the interesting story there is that the season that started so-- about as badly as it possible could because it didn't start, right, may end-- is ending with a very-- in a very compelling fashion that shows the sport maybe at its best. >> right. and 48-game season because of the work stoppage, made for perhaps every regular season game a bit more meaningful, but the teams did not all play each other. the western conference did not play the eastern conference. the black hawks were the best team in the west, pittsburgh was the best team in the east but boston was really, really good. if these go seven, the soaf

games in the nhl finals -- or however many it will be-- the first chance the west has been facing the east. it's been great. three of the four have gone to overtime. we finally saw an offensive explosion last night. the goaltending of boston's tuukka rask has been exceptional. i wouldn't be surprised if the sport of hockey and the sport of basketball enjoy climatic game sevens this season. >> brown: i hadn't realized but these are two of the original teams eye mean in hockey. they hadn't played each other, these two original teams in a long time. >> yeah, and, you know, the rangers, the maple leafs, the canadians-- who am i missing? who is the sixth member of the original six. >> brown: did you have montreal in there? >> yeah, yeah, yeah. detroit red wings. detroit. sure, and hockey is a sport with tons of tradition and these two teams lately have been good. they went through pretty dark periods, both of them, for about 20 years. and, you know, whoever wins will

give a really, really rabid fan base a bit of a gift, a huge gift with the stanley cup. >> brown: list, mike pesca of npr. enjoy tonight and the rest. thanks so much. >> sure. >> suarez: finally tonight, remembering james gandolfini. the actor was best known for his role as mob boss tony soprano. he appeared in his share of gangster roles. but he also acted on stage and in a number of films, including as a whistleblower in the legal drama, "a civil action," a general in the political satire, "in the loop," and most recently as the c.i.a. director iin "zero dark thirty." but it was his complex work on "the sopranos" that netted him three emmy awards and helped fuel big changes in the approach to t.v. dramas. gandolfini portrayed a brutal mobster juggling everyday concerns of family life and who started seeing a psychiatrist for his anxiety attacks.

here's how those meetings began in the opening episode of the sopranos. as some viewers may remember, tony was also obsessed with a family of ducks that had flown away from his house. >> let me tell you something. nowadays, everybody's got to go to shrinks and counselors and go to sally jesse rafael and talk about their problems. whatever happened to gary cooper, the strong, silent type? that was an american. he wasn't in touch with his feelings. he just did what he had to do. what they didn't know, is once they got gary cooper in touch with his foolings they wouldn't be able to shut him up and then it's dysfunction this, and dysfunction that. >> you have strong feel business this. >> let me tell you something, i had a semester and a half in college so i understand freud. i understand therapy as a concept. but in my world it does not go down. could i be happier? yeah, yeah. who couldn't?

>> do you feel depressed? do you feel depressed? >> since the ducks left. i guess. >> the ducks that preceded your losing consciousness. let's talk about them. >> suarez: james gandolfini died yesterday in rome while on vacation. he was 51 years old. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day: the push for immigration reform gained steam as senators announced a compromise on border security. the dow industrials lost more than 350 points, driven in part by fears that the federal reserve will scale back stimulus efforts. and the u.s. house rejected a five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill, largely on disputes over cutting the food stamp program.

>> suarez: and tomorrow, "newshour" political analysts mark shields and david will answer your questions live. hari sreenivasan has the details. >> sreenivasan: on a very special edition of the doubleheader-- devoted to the sport of politics and politics of sports-- mark and david are going to be answering your questions live in our newsroom. submit questions at the rundown, or tweet them to @newshour using the hashtag #doubleheaderlive. and don't forget to tune in friday at 5:15 p.m. eastern time. plus, who popularized the word hormone? we look back at its origins, 108 years after its scientific debut. >> and gwen ifill withler first redit, topics ranging from the politic. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm ray suarez. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown.

we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i want to make things more secure. >> i want to treat more dogs. >> our business needs more cases. >> where do you want to take your business? >> i need help selling art. >> from broadband, to web hosting, to mobile apps, small business solutions from a.t.&t. can help get you there. we can show you how a.t.&t. solutions can help your business today. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations.

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metropolitan revolution. >> the good news is that cities and metros are using the resources there. the networks of philanthropists, business leaders, university leader, not just government leaders to solve all kinds of problems. they're reinvig raising manufacturing, welcoming immigrants, helping workers get the skills they need and we think that these kinds of things can happen in any metropolitan area, that's why we call it a revolution. >> we continue with architect vishaan chakrabarti. his book is called a country of cities, a